Happy Holidaze!

For this Holidaze post, I bring you a Jesus banana and His mother as a cascading waterfall. Who needs a manger?

According to this Daily Telegraph report, Lisa Swinton went to her fruit bowl for a healthy snack and chose this slightly bruised banana, found at the bottom of the bowl. Everyone knows that the brown spots equal sweetness, but Swinton was shocked when she noticed the face: ‘‘I was like ‘Oh my God! It’s Jesus on a banana!’’ I guess Swinton was really hungry because she snapped some pics and then peeled this sucker, later posting images on her Facebook page. For Swinton and her crowd, such visual manifestations, apparently, are no big thing; she tells the Daily Telegraph that her friends have seen Mary in mold and on a door. But have they seen Mary in a waterfall?



The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “You cannot step twice in the same river.” And that goes for waterfalls, too, meaning photographer Carl Silverstein was in the right place at the right time when he shot this photograph. Titled “Falls of Foyer – Woman Holding Child,” Silverstein emailed me the image as he thought I would appreciate it, which I do. The patterns and rhythms of nature inform everything about life, no matter how far-removed we are from those patterns and rhythms; their echoes influence how people recognize these forms in the most unexpected places, even if the people don’t realize it.

See you in 2010, people. If you miss me, Madonna of the Toast can keep you company.

Canned Religion

Spend enough time squinting and deciphering stains and burns thought to resemble iconic faces and forms and the stories start to get a bit humdrum. Such is the case with this recent Virgin Mary pancake from Glendale, Arizona, made by Bianca Lopez the day before Thanksgiving, according to this ABC 15 report. Short story made shorter: Lopez made a batch of flapjacks for her family and the last one featured a shape that she recognized immediately. This visual manifestation has delivered to Lopez the requisite “peace and comfort” and it is now in her freezer for the sake of posterity. End of story.

But for me the real revelation has been learning about the existence of Batter Blaster. Apparently, folks, including Lopez, spray pancake batter from a can. I guess this really shouldn’t come as a surprise because if you can squeeze cheese (or some semblance thereof) from a can squeeze pretty much anything from a can, right? Cheese is a bit more complex to make than pancakes, however. I’ve always been appalled by the idea of pancake mix, so this pressurized version of the stuff really puts me off, even if it is organic.

Of course, there isn't a boring story in Madonna of the Toast, which does include a papal pancake!